He strode in haste to Old Jubilee’s headstall and began to back him towards the boat.  The woman gazed at him for a moment in mere astonishment, then stepped quickly to his side.

“I didn’ know,” she stammered.  “You don’t look nor talk like a bargee.”

Here her voice came to a halt, but in the dusk her eyes appeared to question him.

“Few of us are what we seem, ma’am,” Mr. Mortimer sighed.  “Bargee for the nonce I am, yet gentleman enough to understand a delicate situation.  Your secret is safe with me, and so you may tell your—­your friend.”

“Then you must a-seen them?” she demanded.

“Them?” echoed Mr. Mortimer.

“No,” she went on hurriedly, mistaking his hesitation.  “They made you promise, an’ I don’t want to know.  If I knew, he’d force it out o’ me, an’ then he ’d cut my heart out.”

She glanced over her shoulder, and Mr. Mortimer, interpreting the glance, nodded in the direction of the manhole.

“Meanin’ his Reverence?” he asked.

“His name’s Glasson.  The Orph’nage belongs to him.  It’s a serious thing for him to lose one o’ the children, and he’s like a madman about it ever since . . .”  She broke off and put out a hand to help him with the haulage tackle.  “Where are you taking her?”

“Her?  The boat?  Oh, back to Hucks’s—­Christopher Hucks, Anchor Wharf, Canal End Basin.  ‘Anchor,’ you’ll observe,—­supposed emblem of Hope.”  He laughed bitterly.

“Yes, yes,” she nodded.  “And quick—­quick as ever you can!  Here, let me help—­” She caught at one of the two crowbars that served for mooring-posts and tugged at it, using all her strength.  “He’ll be coming around here,” she panted, and paused for a moment to listen.  “If he catches me talkin’, God knows what’ll happen!” She tugged again.

“Steady does it,” said Mr. Mortimer; and having helped her to draw the bar up, he laid it in the boat as noiselessly as he could and ran to the second.  “There’s no one coming,” he announced.  “But see here, if you’re in fear of the man, let me have another go at the manhole.  He may be down there yet, and if so I’ll give him the scare of his life.  Yes, ma’am, the scare of his life.  You never saw my Hamlet, ma’am?  You never heard me hold parley with my father’s ghost?  Attend!”

Mr. Mortimer stepped to the manhole and struck thrice upon it with his heel.

“Glasson!” he called, in a voice so hollow that it seemed to rumble down through the bowels of earth.  “Glasson, forbear!”

“For God’s sake—­” The woman dragged at his shoulder as he knelt.

“All is discovered, Glasson!  Thy house is on fire, thy orphans are flown.  Rake not the cellarage for their bones, but see the newspapers.  Already, Glasson, the newsboys run about the streets.  It spreads, Glasson; may’st hear them call.  Like wildfire it spreads. ’’Orrible discovery of ‘uman remains!  A clergyman suspected!’”